Method and system for supporting the communication of presence information regarding one or more telephony devices

Abstract

A system for detecting and communicating the presence of one or more computing devices is presented. The invention also presents a method and system for aggregating presence information generated by multiple devices associated with a single user. A server acting as a presence agent on behalf of a first user receives and responds to a subscription request generated by a computing device operated by a second user that wishes to be permitted as a watcher of the first user. When the second user corresponds to access preferences specified by the first user, a notify message is sent to the second user's device that includes presence information indicative of an activity level and availability level associated with the first user. When the first user employs multiple computing devices, the server generates an aggregate presence document that is representative of the overall presence of the first user.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD [0001] The invention relates generally to communication between computers over a network, and more particularly, to methods and systems for communicating the presence of one or more devices from over the network. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] With today's widespread use of the Internet as a primary communication medium, pre-existing communication devices are now being designed so that they are capable of communicating over packet-switched networks. For instance, telephones, pagers, cell phones, handheld computers, and even fax machines can now be accessed and controlled from over the Internet. Communication over a packet-switched network using communication devices that traditionally communicate over a circuit-switched telephone network is generally known as network telephony, or IP telephony when an IP network is involved. [0003] A user having several communication devices (e.g., a cell phone, laptop and handheld PC) can configure each of these devices to ident...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0010] In order to grant access to the second user, the presence agent checks an access control list (ACL) that comprises one or more access rules or preferences. The first user defines these rules in order to affect how its presence information is shared with one or more watchers. When the ACL specifies that the second user may access the presence information, the NOTIFY message includes a presence document that contains the presence information. In contrast, when the ACL specifies that the watcher is not to access the presence information, the NOTIFY message is sent to the watcher without the presence document. Because the network server always sends an acceptance and notification message to the watcher, the subscription process is facilitated without any intervention by the first user, thus minimizing the processing requirements of the presence agent.

Problems solved by technology

Unfortunately, however, conventional presence agents are unable to determine presence with sufficient granularity.

Yet, many presence agents only provide generalized presence information, such as “offline” or “unavailable,” and do not account for more ambiguous presence conditions.

While this method of presence determination can be effective for detecting subtle changes in presence, the constant updating of subscriptions causes the presence agent to use more bandwidth and increases its overall processing time.

Furthermore, this method increases the message load on a server that operates the presence agent resulting in a significant reduction in scalability.

Still further, many presence agents are unable to provide accurate presence information for those users who have several devices registered and present upon the network.

However, just because a user's mobile phone, pager, laptop, PDA, and desktop computer are all present on the network does not mean the user is using all of them.

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